Rangers’ late comeback bid falls short as spiral continues with loss to Blues

ST. LOUIS — The Rangers’ plummet continued Sunday night with a 3-2 loss to the Blues at Enterprise Center after yet another last-ditch effort to salvage a game in the third period was unsuccessful.

A two-goal flurry in the span of 1:18 may have erased the gap on the scoreboard, but it did not minimize the Rangers’ inability to put up any fight at all through the first 50 minutes of the game.

“I don’t even know how to describe the feeling right now,” Adam Fox said when asked how much of this slide — now four losses in the last five games and 10 in the last 13 — has become mental for the Rangers. “It’s definitely not good. We talk; we talk as a group and say to just try and be engaged. It definitely wears on you when you’re in kind of a streak like this.”

Peter Laviolette has reached the lineup blender part of the program, though there were other factors at work when it came to the alignment the Rangers head coach deployed Sunday.

While Artemi Panarin was sidelined with an upper-body injury, Kaapo Kakko was also held out of the lineup despite being healthy, according to a source.

It’s possible Kakko’s scratching was for the same “roster management” reason the Rangers cited when Jacob Trouba was traded to Anaheim earlier this month.